[VicFuentes] Dance, If It Moves You

Thirteen.

Two Months Later

Within seconds, the picture went viral, and almost twenty thousand people on Instagram liked it, and by now, it’s all over Tumblr, and about fifty different people put it on their blog and are claiming to be the first to post it. It’s a simple collage, only two pictures of me and two of Katharine, but apparently the fact that Vic posted it and the caption that he wrote is what people really care about. So, on some of the pictures on Tumblr, the pictures are in a photoset, the top of the picture and the bottom of the caption that Vic wrote.

“These two girls are the reason I like waking up every single morning. They're the light in my life. We took Katharine to her first ballet lesson and she was so amazing. Alana did her hair in a bun and Katharine was the prettiest girl in her class. Alana will probably kill me for this, because she likes to keep her life private. And Katharine means the world to us. We both don’t want her flaunted all over social media. But, I can’t stop myself from posting this. This is my family. These girls are my life. Without them, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now. They are my home. From now on, everything I do in life is to make the two of them proud. Katharine and Alana make me proud every single day. I am the luckiest man in the entire world to have the two of them. I love them, with everything I have.”

And now, every single time we pass someone who knows who we are, either the Pierce the Veil guys or us in Forget Regret or all of us, they have a comment about the collage that Vic posted. They shower us with compliments, and while most of them are so sweet, I don’t want them coming up to us when we’re trying to make the day special for Katharine. It’s her first time here, at Disneyland, and I can’t be responsible for ruining her day or making it any less special, because the guilt would be too much to deal with.

Katharine takes it all in like a champ, a champ with an attitude of a diva, but a champ nonetheless. She thanks them and then proceeds to eat up all the compliments that are handed her way, with a smile on her face and a knowing look in her eyes that tells me that she already knows she was the prettiest girl in her ballet class. When they ask her for a hug, Vic discretely steps in by stating that Katharine is hungry and has a low tolerance for low blood sugar, which isn't true, but I don’t complain, and he speaks with words that Katharine doesn’t understand, so she doesn’t argue with his statement, because the asshole ends up getting her food each time, which she never finishes so the food always ends up in my purse or Bailey’s purse.

Somehow, someway, Vic got us to meet every single princess at the park, and each time we didn’t have to wait on the extremely long lines, usually with parents making nasty remarks under their breath that they knew we could hear about how obnoxious we are for showing her that she can just get what she wants when she wants it. She being Katharine. Because it’s totally obnoxious since I never give my daughter what she wants without it being a reward for something, right, but it’s only because I have holes in my earlobes and tattoos on my body, because that right there means I'm not a good mother. And if they ever found out that I was in a band, good lord, all hell would break loose because a mother is supposed to be home and present and not in a band with a bunch of dudes touring the world, that’s gross, unless you’re famous like Pink or Angelina Jolie or whoever.

Mike and Bailey have not let go of their grip on each other’s hand, not once, actually, a few times, but just to get on the rides, because as soon as they got on the ride, they resumed their hand holding. And each time he swung her arm with his, the sun hit the diamond engagement ring just right to make it shine. I have never seen her this happy, and Vic says that Mike has never been this happy; they make each other happy, and I'm so happy for the two of them. They’re so perfect for each other.

“Dad, dad, daddy, can we go on that ride?” Everyone looks down, all our eyes grow wide, and I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, I don’t think I can breathe because my heart is beating so loudly and fast. She just called him her dad, her father, you know, and that’s, that’s a lot to take in, because she’s never called any man her father, not that there has ever been a guy who has been around this long for her to feel that way about anyone.

Bailey glances at me from the corner of her eye, and I can see her face fall in disappointment; I must not look happy, but I don’t know how to look happy when my daughter just called Vic her father. It’s not that I don’t want Vic to be her father, because I do. It’s just, she just sprang that on him, in front of all of us. Just because he loves us, it doesn’t mean he wants us to be a family, a real family, in which he has the responsibilities of a father and not just the mother’s boyfriend.

I think I'm sweating. I have to be sweating. It’s really not that hot out here, nothing that I'm not used to, low eighties. So it’s not because of the temperature. I can’t believe she just said that. We haven’t even talked about Vic being her dad. She just said it. I don’t, I can’t look at him. What if he doesn’t want that? What if all of this freaks him out and he leaves the two of us?

“Of course we can, baby girl, let’s go.” Vic’s voice, I've never heard him sound so happy.